'What Makes Sammy Run?' by Budd Schulberg

A book review on 'What Makes Sammy Run?' by Budd Schulberg.

'What Makes Sammy Run?' by Budd Schulberg centers on the career of Sammy. Sammy's life is described as a continual "Blitzkrieg against his fellow-men." Sammy came from bottom ranks. His ability to double-cross people, betray his friends, lie to his own family and many other selfish, unscrupulous acts helped him rose swiftly to the top. He first used his wiles in a New York paper. It was there that he first started to work. Then he invaded Hollywood, wreaked havoc as he snaked his way to the top.

 

In the story, Sammy came from Rivington Street. He was a hardhearted person who had quick wits about him. He started as a copy boy on a newspaper. Sammy is ambitious and hard-working. By the time he was 19, he became a radio columnist. Not contented with his lot, Sammy stole a manuscript to be able to penetrate Hollywood. He had no writing abilities but was able to exploit the system of collaboration in Hollywood.

In the book What Makes Sammy Run? Schulberg wants to portray the truth of his life, the way he sees it. It is almost hard to distinguish when the truth begins and the imagination ends in his story because of his journalistic approach. One can read a disclaimer before all his fiction: "only the names of the characters are changed to protect the innocent." But the story about Sammy does not revolved around innocence. As a matter of fact, it is the opposite. Sammy's cunning, ruthless way to approach life is simply unimaginable. Schulberg presents a very grim depiction of Hollywood's skeletons in the closet. Stories about success and failure, a person's maltreatment to others, greed leading human misery abound in the novel. All these plots intertwine to make a very interesting read.

What makes the novel brilliant is its honest depiction of the beliefs and hopes that are apparent during the time. The story flows easily, as if it is not forced. The dialogues among characters are less reserved.

Schulberg's life revolved around the motion-picture. As he brilliantly weaves the story and leads us deeper to the search on what makes Sammy run, Schulberg unmasks his own views about the place. The product is a book which stings Hollywood in its honesty and provides an intimate portrait on the life of Hollywood.

Sammy came from the slums, hence his dog-eat-dog outlook in life. His humble origin had contributed to his ruthless character. The pacing in the novel was fast as it examined Hollywood in great detail. It presented Hollywood as a place where one could gain or lose all in an instant.

Sammy's life was for all to see. Mr. Schulberg spared no detail when it came to Sammy. Sammy's portrait is acerbic but was never dull. This made the book ‘What Makes Sammy Run?’ an important piece of document.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The story behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

It is hard to separate the story Uncle Tom's Cabin from the experience of Harriet Stowe because the two are closely linked. Harriet Beecher Stowe witnessed first-hand the religious and political crises during her day. In Cincinnati, Harriet Beecher Stowe honed her material for the book. She got a first-hand experience with slaves. From her dealings with black women from the slave state of Kentucky, Stowe recalled many stories about their lives that she included in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Harriet wrote just like many male American authors, but which so few female writers attempted which is in dialect rather than refined prose. Stowe stressed though that Uncle Tom's Cabin was not really her work. “The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in His hand,” she said. During her time, a woman was forbidden to be proud of her skills except for her motherly role. Stowe's pronouncement was a brilliant way to disclaim responsibility at the same time praise it.

Uncle Tom's Cabin made a lot of readers see that slaves were people. Just like them, slaves bleed. The very heart-wrenching scenes where children were taken forcibly from their mothers and overly emotional plot woke up the sympathies of the nineteenth-century men. It was said that that President Lincoln saw Stowe in 1863, he greeted her and said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” This statement confirmed beyond doubt that Uncle Tom's Cabin was in a way responsible for the strong stand in the North to abolish slavery.A number of Southerners believed that Uncle Tom's Cabin gave a deceptive depiction of slavery. Stowe in an effort to make the book fair to the South made Mrs. Shelby, George Shelby, and Augustine and Eva St. Clare to be very kind figures. The book's villain, Simon Legree, is from New England was the subject of criticism.

Historians like Herbert Gutman (in The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925) and Eugene G. Genovese (in Roll, Jordan, Roll) give a depiction of slavery that is quite similar to Stowe's. Slave owners' treatment on the slaves varied. People like Simon Legree were unusual. But most of slaves did fear being sold to master like Simon Legree. The description on the life on the Shelby plantation is quite accurate. Sam and Andy "s character showed the way slaves shared information about life on the plantation. The book also detailed the existence of a slave community, and that religion was important to them. St. Clare household showed the differences between plantation slavery and slavery in the cities. Adolph and Rosa depicted slaves who considered themselves above other slaves. 

All these and more depicted the local color in Uncle Tom"s Cabin and made it achieved verisimilitude and thus make more credible the novel`s romantic events and support its moral teaching.

Simple Financial Statements and their Functions

Simple financial statements include the following

Balance sheet - this reflects the value of the business. In the balance sheet we find assets, liabilities and the capital invested. The simple equation for balance sheet is Assets = Liabilities + Capital.

Income statement - is also known as the statement of profit and loss. It reflects the financial status of the company whether it is incurring profits or losses. In the income statement sales is deducted with cost of sales to get net income before other income. Other income such as bank interests is then added to get the net income before tax.

Statement of Retained Earnings - this explains the changes in the company’s retained earnings for the period. It reflects the profits or losses incurred, dividends paid and the amount retained for future use.

What is the Marketing Process?

According to Kyle (2006) the basic marketing processes are:
1). Analyzing the customers and the business environment in order to
2) identify key opportunities to better and more profitably meet customer needs,
3) figuring out how to act on those opportunities, and then
4) implementing your plan.

Analyzing customers and business environment means identifying your target market, knowing their buying patterns and other pertinent information and also knowing the competition since they form part of business environment.

Identify key opportunities to meet customer needs. Once the market is identified, know the needs that the company can cater to.

Figure out how to act on opportunities is finding ways to explore and exploit these opportunities and translate them into profits.

Implementing the plan means carrying out or executing the plan in the course of doing business.

What is Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship pertains to new businesses which are designed to address particular opportunities. Entrepreneurship is also defined as the process of determining, assessing and utilizing opportunities. Webster defined an entrepreneur as “one who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, usually assuming full control and risk."

Since a number of new businesses fail, an essential part of entrepreneurship then is taking risks. Entrepreneurship does not deal with calculated risks. Risks cannot be insured nor minimized. And entrepreneurship deals with these risks by creating solutions to problems.

The vision of an entrepreneur is what drives the entrepreneurship. It also takes a lot of hard work and determination to create an entrepreneurship.